i dont exactly understand how a game can be "too awesome" i mean, look at Saints Row 2, that was ridiculous in almost every way but people accept thator inFamous or Prototype, both very ridiculous but also a spectacle to be enjoyed.

besides that, i always thought directors were trying to go for less "flash" and "bang" because of the rise of "realistic" games like Cash-In Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Azaraxzealot:i dont exactly understand how a game can be "too awesome" i mean, look at Saints Row 2, that was ridiculous in almost every way but people accept thator inFamous or Prototype, both very ridiculous but also a spectacle to be enjoyed.

besides that, i always thought directors were trying to go for less "flash" and "bang" because of the rise of "realistic" games like Cash-In Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Have you even played any of the most recent COD's? The graphics may be on the grey/brown/dull-side but I wouldn't call it's action (one squad saving the world) by any stretch of the imagination "realistic".

Azaraxzealot:i dont exactly understand how a game can be "too awesome" i mean, look at Saints Row 2, that was ridiculous in almost every way but people accept thator inFamous or Prototype, both very ridiculous but also a spectacle to be enjoyed.

besides that, i always thought directors were trying to go for less "flash" and "bang" because of the rise of "realistic" games like Cash-In Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Have you even played any of the most recent COD's? The graphics may be on the grey/brown/dull-side but I wouldn't call it's action (one squad saving the world) by any stretch of the imagination "realistic".

but its by no means as much a spectacle as something like Gears of War or Bulletstorm.

I question your choice of words and even exposition this week, but I agree with the meaning: Stop turning everything up to 11.... million.

Anime is a good example of this... Particularly stuff like Naruto or Dragonball that suffer through abusive levels of power scaling, to the point where the "bit over the top fun fights" get mutilated into "meaninglessand absurd dick measuring clusterfucks".

The ultimate problem isn't necessarily that things go "too far" per say, it's that they simply go too far to still fit the established universe. Nobody questions that Superman can punch someone through a wall, but when a 12 year old kid on a realistically inclined show does it you start to wonder what the fuck.

I've wailed on The Force Unleashed series for this way too long to go on about it, but suffice to say that it's, at the very least, retardedly inconsistent. Based on the pre-existing Star Wars universe, even accepting the abortions that were the "new" trilogy movies (I, II and III), if Starkiller had ever existed then the original trilogy couldn't have happened, simply because Starkiller would be, hands down, the most powerful being in the entire fucking universe, and either he'd take over the galaxy for the dark side, or destroy the dark side for the light side. Yoda was some sort of never-before-seen force master, and he had to focus to levitate an x-wing out of a swamp... Starkiller drops a fucking star destroyer from orbit without blinking. Fuck you George, you mentally bankrupt whorehopper.

Bobic:You complain that those bosses are too big yet a few weeks ago you praised shadow of the colossus. I see a little inconsistency in your ramblings.

In Shadow of the Colossus you are constantly in fear of being thrown off as this gigantic beast that you barely at the last minute are able to kill because you have a magical sword. It's not that unrealistic because you aren't some jumbo, overpowered meat man. You are a fragile youth that has to fight tooth and nail to climb up this giant and after climbing to it's weak point and stabbing it 3 to 4 times you finally bring it down.

You know what's sad about Force Unleashed 2? When I first heard about it was only a day or two before the street date. And honestly the first thing that went through my mind. "He's dead! TFU was supposed to be canon, how in god's name do you bring him back? Cloning? Jesus Jumped-up Christ, Lucas! ENOUGH WITH THE CLONES!"

Now we see the point of the whole cloning nonsense. Boba Fett is a clone, Starkiller is cloned and reborn. Lucas has introduced cloning as freaking retcon white-out. And when these new Star Wars films come out supposedly set thousands of years in the future. What? Emperor Palpatine? They cloned him?

*facepalm*

Anyway there's no possible way TFU could have been good. TFU was basically the Jedi Knight series cranked up to 11, so you know TFU2 was gonna be the same thing. And the story was gonna suck and... Yeah, no point in dragging this out.

You know what I miss? Dark Forces. You know the one star wars game that doesn't have any Jedi nonsense. Where you shoot stormtroopers with blaster rifles and throw thermal detonators at them? Seriously, that was a fun game. Why has the "non-Jedi" aspect of the Star Wars universe been so dismissed? Where are the stories about Han, Chewie, Lando, Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt?

Now we see the point of the whole cloning nonsense. Boba Fett is a clone, Starkiller is cloned and reborn. Lucas has introduced cloning as freaking retcon white-out. And when these new Star Wars films come out supposedly set thousands of years in the future. What? Emperor Palpatine? They cloned him?

*facepalm*

Kinda makes you wonder why they didn't simply clone either an army of Starkiller or an army of Darth Vaders.

Why build an army of Jango Fetts when you could build an army of guy that can crush an AT-ST by waving his hand?

Bobic:You complain that those bosses are too big yet a few weeks ago you praised shadow of the colossus. I see a little inconsistency in your ramblings.

I'd say Shadows of the Colossus gets away with it because it makes your character seem diminutive by comparison. Just as Indie is getting cut and thrown about on the tank, so is Wander as the giant colossi try to shake him off. Kratos on the other hand usually seems to be portrayed as being on equal footing with whatever he faces, even though his foes are usually larger than him. It's very believable, since he's got herculean strength, but it removes the tension from the fight, knowing this giant monstrosity is just another pest for him to deal with.

Now we see the point of the whole cloning nonsense. Boba Fett is a clone, Starkiller is cloned and reborn. Lucas has introduced cloning as freaking retcon white-out. And when these new Star Wars films come out supposedly set thousands of years in the future. What? Emperor Palpatine? They cloned him?

*facepalm*

Kinda makes you wonder why they didn't simply clone either an army of Starkiller or an army of Darth Vaders.

Why build an army of Jango Fetts when you could build an army of guy that can crush an AT-ST by waving his hand?

There is a game I like to talk about that really made me nervous and afraid of failing. That game was called Heavy Rain. It made my palms sweat (and that almost never happens when I play games) and had me shaking from sheer adrenaline because I could relate to the situations and knew that there was a very real risk of me failing. I can imagine the horror of being drugged and waking up, tied to a table in the basement of a crazy surgeon who is about to improvise an anatomy lesson with a power drill on me. Or the terror of being faced with cutting off your own finger to save someone you love.

Sometimes I think I am slowly getting too old for modern games, because they seem more and more tailored to teenage boys who are easily impressed by "wow"-sequences like Starkiller pulling a Star Destroyer out of orbit or aircraft falling out of the sky after an EMP-wave hits Washington D.C. In essence, I agree with what Yahtzee says. But I've always been a sucker for moody games as opposed to flashy games.

Sir John the Net Knight:[quote="Caliostro" post="6.246678.9044186"][quote="Sir John the Net Knight" post="6.246678.9044130"]Now we see the point of the whole cloning nonsense. Boba Fett is a clone, Starkiller is cloned and reborn. Lucas has introduced cloning as freaking retcon white-out. And when these new Star Wars films come out supposedly set thousands of years in the future. What? Emperor Palpatine? They cloned him?

*facepalm*

Isn't Star Wars set in the past? In a Galaxy Far far away?... You know? A long time ago?

I'm just saying... Maybe Yahtzee has a really good point with this one, I felt it more "real" when Yoda picked up a X-wing out of a Swamp that when Starkiller dropped a Destroyer out of the sky... I wish we could go back to the time there wasn't a second trilogy...

Caliostro:I've wailed on The Force Unleashed series for this way too long to go on about it, but suffice to say that it's, at the very least, retardedly inconsistent. Based on the pre-existing Star Wars universe, even accepting the abortions that were the "new" trilogy movies (I, II and III), if Starkiller had ever existed then the original trilogy couldn't have happened, simply because Starkiller would be, hands down, the most powerful being in the entire fucking universe, and either he'd take over the galaxy for the dark side, or destroy the dark side for the light side. Yoda was some sort of never-before-seen force master, and he had to focus to levitate an x-wing out of a swamp... Starkiller drops a fucking star destroyer from orbit without blinking. Fuck you George, you mentally bankrupt whorehopper.

Yeah, i totally agree with you and Yahtzee on this one... i've looked at TFU2 gameplay and thought to myself: "The fuck? This isn't Star Wars, this is God of War." Seriously, it was considered an achievement to use the Force as targeting aid to destroy the Death Star with a precisely-placed proton projectile in an homage to Dambusters back when the original Star Wars movie was new, but Starkiller could blow the Death Star up directly with the Force, just by thinking hard enough! If we accept the biological origin for the Force, then Starkiller must be 68% or even 99% midichlorians, and if it's spiritual in origin, then why the hell Luke or Yoda or Vader are "the chosen ones" when this guy dwarfs them all without even flinching an eyebrow?! To summarize, once again: "this may be cool, but it's not Star Wars by any stretch of imagination."/rant

Yahtzee Croshaw:And I posit that it is more than possible for a sequence to be too awesome.

Don't agree with you on some things Yahtzee, but definitely on that. It's starting to cross into TV/Movies and everything else (RTD and Michael Bay are especially fond of it)

See, there's an Uncanny Valley, like that of facial recognition, where your mind just goes "Fuck this for a game of soldiers."

The latest casualty is that bad guy in Avatar. You know, the one that's marked as BAD GUY and carries around a sign saying BAD GUY, and the GOOD GUY has doubts about him being the BAD GUY - and in the end he betrays them, because he's a BAD GUY.

Sorry, don't know if you caught the subtle symbolism in Cameron's writing.

Anyway, this BAD GUY takes more hits than any other creature in the whole f-ing film. Seriously. Look at how hard those planes get tanked, look at what the big Mind-Tree takes...he takes that and more, and still does the "Kirk" where he brushes the blood of his lips and says "Let's get it on now."

There's a certain point where suspension of disbelief snaps.

In Doctor Who recently, there was a massive explosion of this during The Big Bang, where the Doctor was released from his prison by the Doctor.

Epic? yes. Too epic?...it's straining. You COULD work it out by bringing in multiple re-tries, Blinovitch problems, shrinking universes - but it still stuck out like a sore thumb.

Oh I agree, the entire "Force Unleashed" thing is ridiculous. Also being set between known movie events to give it a "canon" type feel, the "real" seeming ending having to involve the protaganist's death is nessicary to explain why nobody ever knew about this guy with the other stuff that was going on.

All told the entire premise was not very good, and the Force was overpowered.

That said I think it got approved because if you understand Star Wars as only a TRUE nerd can, it is remotely plausible. The Force isn't really based on personal abillity, but rather it's own desires in making the universe follow a cycle (good, brief balance, evil, brief balance, good... ad infinium with each good or evil cycle lasting thousands of years). This is why personal abillity varies so much, and why you see situations where "the Force is Cloudy" as well as prophecies (like the one about Anakin) which plays into the whole predestined/manipulative aspct of the whole thing.

If one argues that Starkiller was a ridiculous super-Saiyan type figure (to referance Yahtzee's video) because of the universe's need to remove the various Jedi and other rediculous forces to make the transition happen, it could be argued to make sense.

It's still unnessicary and idiotic however, on that I agree.

I also will say that I agree with Yahtzee's point on something being "too awesome" though I prefer to think of it as being "overdone". Being "awesome" is a positive term that seems to hurt what he's trying to say. In a literal sense I guess the point is that if the "awe" comes from the sheer ridiculousness of a situation in context to the storyline, then it's a bad thing. I agree with that. His example is spot on: ginormous screen-filling bosses were cool when they weren't in every game, now that they are, they are just getting to be stupid and over done.

Context also matters, when your doing a super-hero storyline, people expect things to be campy and ridiculous. Even the most gritty and "realistic" ones are still that way, they just tell the story differantly. When your playing a super-hero in a game like "infamous" you expect it to be over the top. In something like "Indiana Jones" you expect a differant kind of set up, and a scene like the one involving Shia doesn't really fit in with the style.

Well, according to "The Expanded Universe" (and one of the reasons I think it gets to be pretty horrible) I believe Timothy Zahn had The Emperor's Secret Vault being guarded by several cloned Jedi Masters, which of course raised the question of why he wasn't using these things for other purposes. It's been a while though.

It could be a sign pointing towards wanting to use Zahn's work as a basis for sequels. The implication being perhaps that if they had *just* achieved it, a few years wasn't enough time to create more than a handfull of controllable clones. It would also in theory allow them to pull out the "Starkiller Clone" at some point as a super-weapon, claiming it was in stasis or being stored in another vault/on guard duty or something.

I do notice that they did make some referances to video games in the Star Wars prequels, one that people were talking about was how General Grevious was injured at the beginning of the movie due to a beat down he allegedly received in a video game climax to prove it was canon. If George is thinking "long term" he might have something similar planned here.

It still makes little sense (I mean the whole bit in Zahn's writing from what I remember was very much a 'WTF' moment), but there you go.

Wouldn't the opposite of "design by committee" be an "auteur game" of the sort that was rallied against in Mr. Crowshaw's "Too Human" review? It would seem to me that both approaches can easily produce both deeply flawed and excellent games.

This is the exact problem I had with the Star Wars prequels (and to some extent, Spider-Man 3) : There's some much impractical shit happening on screen, that any tension you might've had just disappears.

In videogames this is not as much of an issue for me since I am the one who's actually doing all of this impractical, awesome stuff. However, games like TFU 2 and Bayonetta are so over the top, that any real sense of "impact" is lost aswell.

What TFU2 reminds me of is a child of about 7 or so who had seen some good action movie and was trying to play it out from his memory a week later. He doesn't remember any of the talking, the plot of the movie, or why he should like the protagonist but he does like to run around the room ranting, raving, and reenacting the glorious fight scenes. People like George in the game industry don't realize that [b]small deliberate movements have the potential to be more meaningful than the most over the top bullshit in TFU2.[b/] Take a look at other games such as Mass Effect 1 & 2 ( I hate to compare TFU to ME but it's my best example ) they never had something that pulled me out of the game experience...not once. I took one good look at videos on youtube and turned my nose up at it...the bottom line is that TFU wasn't ~as~ geared toward the kids, but when George got the marketing numbers back he had a small seizure and went on a splurge. South Park got it right when they showed him raping the Clone Trooper and Spielberg raping Indie. My childhood memories will never be the same because these shit stains will always come to my mind as a smelly afterthought.

It also tends to play into it that the most "awesome" things are just setpieces designed to happen no matter what and completely ignore the whole game aspect. Plus giant bosses tend to be not nearly as powerful as their size suggests because of the no-gamer-left-behind policy so they don't play much differently from fighting a regularly sized dude who's tagged as "the boss".

made some great points, which is far better than just bashing the Star Wars fandom like he did before

altho I'll admit, at my age I've already grown past Star Wars somewhat to the point where me playing FU2 was just to experience some momentary (and yes, very brief moments) of the Star Wars universe before returning the game back to Blockbuster

not exactly delving back into it all again 100% nor am I totally taking it too seriously, just getting what enjoyment I can out of this childhood fandom. guess this is one of the few things in life where I've learned to somewhat move on from haha...can't say that for some other things (like my ex, altho a part of me wonders the same for Yahtzee)

I completely agree with Yahtzee on this point. Willing suspension of disbelief can only go so far. Another example is the ridiculous assassin chase sequence in Attack of the Clones - the sheer mind-numbing implausibility of the sequence causes it to lose any and all tension (to paraphrase Mr. Plinkett's analysis), no matter how "awesome" it may be.

I think the operative word is "restraint". All good musicians know that playing fast, or playing loud, or playing at all are not as important as the times you play slow, or quiet, or not at all. Without contrast, nothing stands out. I ranted about this last week with the Dragon Age: Origins "Sacred Ashes" trailer. The trailer was about a group of hyperconfident, snarky badasses with superheroic acrobatic abilities that laughed in the face of dragons. A far cry from the game itself where they turned out to be flawed, vulnerable human beings with hopes and dreams, who had to struggle for what they got. Sorry, maybe it's my parents' immigrant work-ethic, but I don't empathize with heroes who get victory handed to them (Harry Potter in Book 1). I prefer heroes who have to struggle and sacrifice to succeed (Harry Potter in Book 7).

Sir John the Net Knight:You know what I miss? Dark Forces. You know the one star wars game that doesn't have any Jedi nonsense. Where you shoot stormtroopers with blaster rifles and throw thermal detonators at them? Seriously, that was a fun game. Why has the "non-Jedi" aspect of the Star Wars universe been so dismissed? Where are the stories about Han, Chewie, Lando, Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt?

This. To paraphrase Tycho of Penny Arcade, I'm more interested in the smugglers, pilots, bounty hunters, rebels and crime lords trying to survive in a universe wracked by an endless holy war between two sects of insane super-powered warrior monks, than those lunatics themselves.

Yahtzee Croshaw:Force Unleashed 2 is a very curious case. There's a good ending and a bad ending (or 'light side' and 'dark side', rather, Star Wars does nothing if not run with a theme) and predictably the dark side is the shitty ending where you die and fail. But here's the odd thing. The entire last chapter of the game seems to be leading up to a twist at the end, 'cos all the other characters are going "No don't go that way some things are better off not knowing," etc. But are you ready for this, internet? The twist is only revealed in one of the endings. And it's only revealed in the bad ending. The one where you fail is the one where the story finds some payoff. How does that make any fucking sense?

If coinciding with the original Star Wars, Starkiller was meant to fail just like Halo Reach. Those guys were meant to fail. So it doesn't make any sense to have a good ending. Why? it is not like Starkiller is continued to the original Star Wars movie. And if he did, wouldn't that take away any potential of Luke Skywalker?

I am so at awe by the analogy Yahtzee made at the end between the Indiana Jones movies. Being a fan of that series, I was never able to put my finger on why the Crystal skull bothered me so much, but I think this is why it did. The realism compared to the realism of Last Crusade that's so great. I do remember the feelings in both the tank scene and the jeeps scene. One made your heart race abit and the other made you think something is wrong about it at the very least.

Yahtzee Croshaw:The problem with games like Force Unleashed 2 is a lack of editorial discipline, which is in turn a consequence of design-by-committee, the philosophy that is the source of all evil in mainstream media and which I have railed against for years. But what are you doing about it, mainstream games industry? What do I have to do to make you change? Shall I drop a swear? Will that do, you stodgy cunts? Or should I drop ten million swears until the words lose all meaning in my head? Worth a try, I suppose. Tune into ZP each week to hear me gradually work towards this target.

This kinda thing reminds me of Dragonball Z, probably because it's the worst offender. Every new season upped the ante by, literally, not figuratively, upping the bad guy's "powerlevel" until "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND" ceased to even be a staple of the show because it was a laughably low number.

That big thing what beat up a rancor like it was a gerbil.... Jesus, what the hell. I only need to take on look at that, and I can accede that there truly IS a peak to the mountain of awesome where a step further brings us down, a crest where up is impossible.

Things have to seem ever so slightly believable or else the audience will lose all grasp of perspective. Sure, for some people a never ending upward ramp is what they want, but for them we have several dozen crappy inexplicable anime series with 16 seasons each.

Another good article, and I really agree with a lot of your points. Things that are too flashy and ridiculous often end up being less cool and harder to take seriously, and the kind of one-upmanship you described has definitely been hurting action scenes for a while.

I think that the problem with a God of War style giant boss is that you only really deal with tiny pieces of it and then finish it in some ridiculous cinematic event that' not even close to anything you can do in normal gameplay. My favorite giant boss fights are actually the Arms Forts in Armored Core: For Answer, which really forced you to fight entirely unique enemies at least 100 times your size in normal gameplay. You never felt that the task was completely impossible, but at the same time you felt a very real sense of how dangerous they were and had to spend time selecting your strategy and equipment instead of fighting them the same way you did other enemies. The game had a ton of problems, but those fights really redefined what I think of when I think of giant bosses.

Caliostro:I question your choice of words and even exposition this week, but I agree with the meaning: Stop turning everything up to 11.... million.

Anime is a good example of this... Particularly stuff like Naruto or Dragonball that suffer through abusive levels of power scaling, to the point where the "bit over the top fun fights" get mutilated into "meaninglessand absurd dick measuring clusterfucks".

The ultimate problem isn't necessarily that things go "too far" per say, it's that they simply go too far to still fit the established universe. Nobody questions that Superman can punch someone through a wall, but when a 12 year old kid on a realistically inclined show does it you start to wonder what the fuck.

I've wailed on The Force Unleashed series for this way too long to go on about it, but suffice to say that it's, at the very least, retardedly inconsistent. Based on the pre-existing Star Wars universe, even accepting the abortions that were the "new" trilogy movies (I, II and III), if Starkiller had ever existed then the original trilogy couldn't have happened, simply because Starkiller would be, hands down, the most powerful being in the entire fucking universe, and either he'd take over the galaxy for the dark side, or destroy the dark side for the light side. Yoda was some sort of never-before-seen force master, and he had to focus to levitate an x-wing out of a swamp... Starkiller drops a fucking star destroyer from orbit without blinking. Fuck you George, you mentally bankrupt whorehopper.

You really seem to be talking about anime in too broad a sense. There is a tremendous amount of variety in anime and anime is by no means any one thing. It's many things. I'm pretty sure that even Yahtzee would agree with me on this one. And if you are describing Dragonball and Naruto as realistically inclined then I really can't say that I agree with you. For example in the very first episode of Naruto the very first thing we see is a giant demon fox and in Dragonball we have things like dinosaurs that still exist for no apparent reason and cars that you can carry around in tiny capsules. If you want realistically inclined then I would suggest titles like Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and Monster. Now THOSE are realistically inclined.

But on the other hand I pretty much agree with you about the handling of the Star Wars Universe. In recent years George Lucas and those who work under him have been doing WAY too much retconning. What really bugs me about The Force Unleashed II is the apparent total lack of respect it has for established Star Wars canon. News Flash to the people at LucasArts: Characters like Juno Eclipse and Rahm Kota are at best nothing but footnotes in the Star Wars timeline. Please stop trying to go back in time and establish otherwise. And complaints like this one are just the tip of the iceberg. But then again consistency really doesn't seem to be George Lucas's strong point. For example Leland Chee, the person in charge of maintaining the Star Wars continuity database called Holocron, at one point outright stated that George Lucas's view of the Star Wars expanded universe was "constantly evolving".

I really sorry to say, but this is one of the main reasons that I've recently been starting to lose interest in Star Wars related stuff.

Azaraxzealot:i dont exactly understand how a game can be "too awesome" i mean, look at Saints Row 2, that was ridiculous in almost every way but people accept thator inFamous or Prototype, both very ridiculous but also a spectacle to be enjoyed.

besides that, i always thought directors were trying to go for less "flash" and "bang" because of the rise of "realistic" games like Cash-In Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Yeah but in saints row 2 it was the little things that made it funny, like when you first walk off the prison boat and stumble across and old lady throwing a pimp face first into a lamppost. Its not realistic, or even physically possible, but at least you can comprehend the physics involved. Whereas what Yahtzee here is talking about is something like Just Cause 2 where you can stand on top a jet fighter at top speed 10 miles above a tropical island, place a lump of c4 on it, cleanly jump off, pull a parachute out of your arse then detonate the c4. There are so many things that should not work in that situation yet on screen it just happens and expects you to go along. And although the whole point of just cause is that you can do amazing nonsensical stunts I find the game demands far too much willing disbelief. If you clear out a whole military base in Just Cause 2 it looses all meaning because you used massive regenerating health, a rapid fire rocket launcher, a pouch of infinite parachutes that don't catch on anything and a grappling hook that is infinitely strong while somehow being unable to tear your arm clean off in the process. You didn't win a fight, you used an atom bomb to mow your lawn.